


Honor Thy Father

by shadow13



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: Bisexuality, F/M, Family, Father-Son Relationship, Mother-Son Relationship, Multi, Other, fae stuff, jareth's parents - Freeform, pansexuality, underadge foolin'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 01:31:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9634826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow13/pseuds/shadow13
Summary: Love, and a father's expectations.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mztlynne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mztlynne/gifts).



> Okay, so you know me, I'm not usually into Jareth's parents in fics, because it's really rarely done right. This is a little side piece from an idea I had that is....way too bananas to get into. So it references headcanons and it's just it's own stupid little thing. HMU on Tumblr if it fascinates you and you want to know about my madness.  
> And usually I'm not into pansexual Jareth, but I wanted to explore some ideas of Mzt's. So I guess this is the fic where I do all the things I don't usually do.  
> This was supposed to be primarily focused on Jareth's love affairs, and then whoops, I did the thing where now it's all feels and strained parental relationships, haha.

            The feather pit was full. Pillows swathed in silk, loose pinions, at least three sticks of heady incense burning by the sides and a carafe of oil generously applied to all parties…Skin was gleaming, and the eroticism of it would quickly melt into a game – who could grab on to whom, who could wiggle free first. But then the laughter would turn to moans as soon as someone applied a tongue in a sensitive spot or fingers made purchase on their goals, and the game was back to sensual exploration all over again.

            It was grand, all splayed limbs and sharp angles; soft, panting moans or quick squeals of delight; a rhythm that was both frantic and easy at once. Jareth had his hand wrapped around Iras’ shaft, who himself was being mercilessly pounded on by Soulros, the latter of whom had been trying to catch Jareth in a kiss and had not yet succeeded. Jareth was like that, though. He teased. It was all easy, hedonistic fun and it might have gone on forever-

            Had strong fingers not pinched on Jareth’s ear – _hard_ – and yanked.

            “ _Ow_! Gods fucking-”

            “Jareth.” It was his father’s merciless growl beside him, pulling him up and out of the pit – and still by the ear the whole while! “Your language.”

            “Elder’s spit,” he ground out through gritted teeth while Iras whimpered and Soulros stopped his thrusting out of pure fear. “That _hurts_ , Father.”

            “Mm.” Severin didn’t seem to find that especially problematic, not letting go until his son was on his feet, and still naked as the day he was born. “I told you that you were to present yourself in chambers by one o’clock. It’s your own fault you decided to…” He cast the coolest of glances at the prince’s companions in the pit, “ _diddle_ away your time.”

            “Oh, that’s easily fixed…” Jareth purred, raising his hand as a clock materialized over his shoulder, already beginning to spin the hands backwards.

            The Goblin King smacked his hand down, casually, as he always did. That is to say, the motion was casual, it did not wrinkle his brow or set a hair out of place, and he remained completely neutral in his composure when he did it. At _best_ , however, it always stung – badly. Jareth hissed and cradled his hand. “None of your smart mouth today, Jareth.” Twisting his wrist, he produced a long, linen tunic and tossed it at his son, who caught it. “Cover your shame, there’s a lad.”

            He had only just scrambled the shirt over his head when he felt the shifting of the ground beneath his feet; not the tantalizing feather pit any longer, then, oh sigh. Pulling the collar down, he found himself in his parents’ solar, not the best place to try to rub down his stiff erection – the situation only made worse when his mother danced in from her boudoir.

            “Oh, Severin, you found him!” For her part, Aemlith was all delighted smiles, not in the least put out by her son’s tardiness _or_ appearance.

            “ _Mo-ther_!” Jareth was howling, pulling the hem of his tunic down and shrinking considerably, in every sense. “For the gods’ sake!”

            “What are you noising about?” the Goblin Queen tutted, not so much as blushing. “I’ve seen you naked more times than you’ve gone to bed, silly boy, you think your little friend there frightens me? Such nonsense.” She turned, smiling, to her husband, planting a kiss on his cheek. “Where was he?”

            “The second ballroom,” Severin purred, pleased with his kiss. “His little orgy pit.”

            “Naughty Jareth!” Aemlith scolded, tweaking her son’s nose and hiding a smile as he snapped his fingers and dressed himself in the tight trousers of his usual wont. “Just like when he was a baby, always grabbing his-”

            “Are you done humiliating me yet?”

            “Not just yet.” Satisfied his heir was going to stay put, Severin returned to his own dressing table, fastening his silver filigree pin at his high, black collar, straight at the throat. “The Lady of Belle Slane arrives in less than an hour, or have you forgotten that?”

            “I haven’t…” Jareth’s good humor was now completely gone, and he sat sullenly on his mother’s divan and produced his boots with an irritated snap of his fingers.

            Severin’s cold, blue eyes fixed on him in the mirror, but only for a moment. “This is important, Jareth. None of your idiocy.”

            “What do I do that’s so idiotic?”

            The king, for his part, actually rolled his eyes. “Your idea of games do not amuse: if you wish to engage her in sport, it can be backgammon, _not_ a trip through the Labyrinth.”

            The princeling crossed his arms and huffed. “That one wasn’t my fault. Feredstol was bragging he could climb over the walls, I simply gave him the opportunity.”

            If his father heard, he made no motion. “If the Lady asks for your music, you will _not_ produce that appalling metal tube.”

            “What’s wrong with my sackbut?”

            “It sounds like the goblins being held over the Bog of Eternal Stench.”

            “In the Aboveground-!”

            “And _that_ ,” Severin turned and Jareth shrank back instinctively against the back of the settee, “is the crux of things: you will _not_ bring up your gallivanting in the Aboveground. You think you can go anywhere you please just because the mortals call to you in their dreams; well I tell you, that is not the case, Jareth. Bring that subject up to the Lady and you sink us for another century, will _that_ satisfy you?”

            The atmosphere of the solar was tense: since Jareth’s 650th year, his father had been working with a single-minded focus to see his House brought back into the inner circle of the High King. More than a thousand years of rebellion and border skirmishes by Severin’s own father had made of the Goblin Kingdom at best a pariah among the fae. In most all things, the Goblin King could not be accused of a desire to assimilate, ruthlessly independent as he usually was – but in this he was tireless.

            It was Aemlith who broke the anxious moment, as was so often the case. Her delicate hands on Jareth’s shoulder, and he relaxed. “They’re just jealous, my dear one, you know that. Most of the fair folk have to obey so many rules in the mortal world – and you Kings of Dreams, you’re given such freedoms.” She bent down and kissed his cheek and Jareth huffed. “It’s only polite not to remind them.”

            The prince had not stopped scowling. “It’s not as if they haven’t privileges in equal measure.”

            But the queen pet his hair and the platinum locks pulled up with static. “It’s for you, sweet, your father works so hard, be appreciative of him.” How greatly Jareth tired of that! He and Severin locked eyes for a moment, and the Goblin Prince remembered bitterly how his own right eye matched his father’s so very well. He tired of it because he knew how it pulled the old man’s sternum just a bit straighter. _Yes, boy, I am your elder, and I can beat you yet. Honor me – until_ you _have the throne_. Sickening. “He wants to see you wed to a proper lady, one worthy of my Goblin Prince-”

            Jareth’s reply was a very dry scoff. “You might all save your trouble!” He stood, collecting his boots and moving to his father’s table to use as a means of wedging this on. Severin’s brow wrinkled. “I’ll marry Iras, there shall be no heirs, and we will tear the kingdom apart in parsimonious splendor!” Iras was Jareth’s latest bosom companion, a bowing courtier of lowly rank who curried favor where he could; but there was no doubt the fumbling beneath the sheets was genuinely enjoyed by both, and whether Jareth loved him or not was anybody’s guess – but he was perfectly happy to say so, if it irked his father. No doubt poor Iras would be sent off soon, too, just as the last courtier that found his way to the prince’s bed had been.

            Aemlith thinned her lips, but her brown eyes betrayed her amusement. “Oh, Jareth.”

            “He would, too,” Severin sniffed, turning to his wife. “Since he lacks absolutely all shame.”

            “That is correct!” His boots secure, he fell back indolently into an overstuffed chair, the very picture of a royal ne’er-do-well. “The line will end with me, the Hedonic Goblin Prince!”

            “What was it last week?” Severin produced a clock to see how long until he could expect the Lady’s arrival and then erased it from the air. “A satyr?”

            Jareth almost purred. “Oh, but that was lovely.”

            “He’ll bury himself to the hilt in a wood sprite next.”

            “And why not? It might be enjoyable!” Aemlith laughed without embarrassment, and her joy only further delighted her issue. “The gods do fashion us for pleasure, do they not, Mother?”

            “And so they do! Seelie and unseelie, man and woman and all that is in between.” She strode over and planted an affectionate kiss on her son’s beak-like nose. “But do be careful, my sweet, that is all I ask.”

            Severin sighed and came to take his consort’s arm. With only a calm, measuring glance at his son, he said, “Finish getting ready and meet us in the Throne Room. Ten minutes, Jareth, I mean that. No sense primping like a peacock…”

            The royal couple left, Aemlith’s laughter still echoing down the corridor. It was only when their footsteps had died away that Jareth found his muscles unclenching, his posture no longer so deathly stiff. “I know why you don’t want me to mention the Aboveground.” He said it to the air, and to the person he need most speak with. “I know, Father – Majesty.”

            It was the Goblin King’s right to choose his bride, with no family to constrain him, no treaties to uphold and a singular kingdom cut off from its kind…And freely he had chosen, Severin, the Goblin King – on a night when the border between Under and Above was thin, and how sweetly the mortals did call to the Fair Folk to join them in their dances. The human woman Aemlith had been his choice of bride, and a grand and glorious queen she was, a mortal woman given immortality, such as it is for the fae.

            But she wore the mantle strangely; where a fae woman would not have felt the pull of the Eternal Isle for some time and remained hearty and hale until the end, Aemlith’s body betrayed her humanity. The lines that grew along her hands…the silver that formed in her raven black hair, at the temples and growing all the time, it seemed…The Lady of Belle Slane could hardly fail to notice it, would no doubt be fascinated to see how a mortal girl had escaped death, but could not escape its facsimile amongst the fae. Severin would ban all mention of the word, any implication that his issue would not be worthy of a seat at the table of the High King – and any remembrance that his wife might leave him, and someday soon.

 

* * *

 

 

      Eskeline was a nymph, in the literal sense. Figuratively, she held up, too. Jareth’s breath came in increasingly more desperate gasps, soft moans that bordered on pathetic with need. He stayed her hand when it massaged his testicles too well – the sensation was too much, it was almost painful. Her mouth slipped back and forth along his length with a wet, greedy sound, and his head tilted back. He ought to try to brush her hair aside, warn her he was-

      The wardrobe door was opened, the pair winced like vampiric creatures at the sudden burst of light in their dark, humid cave. “I thought I might find you here.” His father’s low purr was completely nonplussed.

      Eskeline was gone, and she left only a puddle of water where she’d just been, where he’d planned to puddle her in a few more moments…back to her pond, no doubt; nymphs were so flighty. Jareth could already feel himself going soft as the air cooled along the girl’s saliva. “Father…your timing is, as ever, impeccable.”

      “The wardrobe, Jareth?” The Goblin King stepped back, allowing his son to exit, which he did – after first righting his trousers.

      “Yes, well, I hoped it might be the one place we would not be disturbed.”

      “You’re late for your sparring,” was all the lordly fae gave in reply, neither censure nor amusement. Sparring…that would be enough to make his father interrupt his moments of pleasure. “You’re keeping the master waiting.”

      “Oh, mustn’t do that…” _Keeping my climax waiting_ …

      The sparring lessons had become a regular chore, and the master – a funny little man in oversized robes but with _wicked_ form – was a scheduled thorn in the young man’s side. At just past his thousandth year, the prince was becoming too old to be so directed by his father. Less titled sons would have bristled against the stays, and with good reason. Severin still rode roughshod over his only child’s independent streak, but probably because it so closely mirrored his own.

      At least, so Aemlith would have said. Near a century had she been gone, called away to the Eternal Isle. How stoically the king had born her loss, to all but those who knew him. It sometimes struck Jareth his eyes had lost some of their color, some of the light in their character. He chose not to dwell upon that.

      The Goblin King more than just escorted his son to the practice area – he had made it a habit in recent times to _babysit_ him while there. This was only after Jareth had escaped an entire lesson by flying to the top of a hazel tree and enjoying tea with the delighted fairies there, who quickly took to spiking it, the better to get the best of a fae lord. The entire castle had been driven out to look for him, and it was as lucky his father had found him when he did as not, or the little beasties might have succeeded in drugging him enough to eat him whole with all their tiny bites. The great grey owl could be seen dragging the floppy, flaxen form down from the tree with considerable cuts and abrasions and absolutely _no_ mercy.

      So now His Majesty observed – and critiqued whenever possible. Sat at table with the clearest view, he spread his official papers before him and ordered wine from his majordomo while the little master corrected his pupil’s stance with his stick. “Remember, Jareth, posture. If you can fence, you can fly, and you could stand for a great deal of correction in _that_ respect, as well.”

      The prince ground his teeth and submitted to the little old man’s chattering and corrections. “There – there. Yis. You hold – yis.” The master nodded, adopting the same position and yet with far more grace and ease than his student. They raised the foils and brought them down with the swift sound that broke the air…and all the lunging and slashing and reaching began.

      Mostly on Jareth’s part. The little old man moved like a youth half his age or less, and constantly beat the Goblin Prince at every turn. And oh, how Severin always watched, eagle eyed, unforgiving. “Your vanity, Jareth – you fight with no defense at all! So certain in your strength, are you?”

      “Wha-” _Thwap_. The silver-and-silk tip hit the young man square in the chest, the old man in perfect lunge. He could feel a growl building in his chest. “That doesn’t count – you were distracting me.”

      “In battle, your foes will not be so polite.” And the swords wouldn’t be tipped in silver…Jareth knew what was at the end of his father’s blade – a point of pure iron. He had skewered the elven attackers on it in battle eighteen hundred years before and his son little doubted he could do so with near equal elegance now.

      But that sport Severin left behind him, though he indulged in the practice blades to soothe his ego or loosen his shoulders. Jareth had watched him early in this routine the king had established, a round of skill between the lord and the master. They equaled each other in every stroke, weaknesses that fit the other’s strengths and vice versa. The master moved like water and Severin like air – cutting, swift, unhurried and without mercy. At the end of it, he’d hung up his foil again laughing and smiling, and how long it had been since his son had seen that sight….if ever. The master bowed and chattered to him like a songbird. It was a scene the heir had never repeated.

      “Again.” The master bowed to his pupil and readopted his stance. “Ready? Ready? Yis. Again!” Jareth reluctantly took up the pose, saw his father speaking with his steward about some document from the corner of his eye. Why was he making him do this? He knew he was better than him, it was obvious in every way. And Jareth’s skill lay with the lance, he was wicked with it and never failed to make a hit, everyone who watched him always said so. It was just another way his father tried to mold him into the image he preferred, it was the only explanation. Severin, rarely among his peers, ruled with a blade. Jareth had better do the same if he planned to save his family from total embarrassment.

      _Thwap_. The blade struck him at the back of the calf. If they weren’t practice foils, it would have severed through the tendon and he’d have been down in an instant. The frustration in him was mounting. The master kept talking in his strange tongue.

And still Severin hadn’t missed a moment. “Jareth.”

      Jareth tapped his anger deep within himself and turned, arms outstretched, bowing before his liege and instead performing as his father must have expected him to. “Your Grace!”

      “It seems I still beat you with the sword.”

      His sharp teeth showed in his smirk. “It would seem so, but in my case, I think the _pen_ is mightier.”

      The punning was not lost on his father, whose brow drew in but only barely. “How can you stand to have me better than you?”

      “Oh, but Father, I practice my swordplay but regularly! You interrupted me at it just before. My attack,” and he thrust his hips accordingly, “has been described as conquering.”

      With clear eyes, Severin watched this performance and swallowed his wine, never blinking, features never changing an iota. “Again, Jareth.”

      “Again, again!” The little master was tapping him into place with his stick. Jareth thought his jaw would break for the pressure as his teeth ground together. Again, again…

 

* * *

 

 

      Their moments together were always quiet. Frenetic, yes, but he held himself back. Sarah was young, too young to take, too young to keep just yet. His mother’s age when she’d been wooed by Severin, the Goblin King…But oh, that was a very different time, those millennia ago. Girls were women sooner then.

      Jareth could not come whenever he pleased, as much as he wanted to. He had, after all, no power over her. He had to be _invited_ – and Sarah only ever did that in her dreams. It wasn’t always the bed; she summoned him by a meandering river once, once at a café of the Belle Epoque – and once in a ballroom, but that dream dissolved most quickly, to his intense dismay.

      But _usually_ it was the bed, and that suited his taste fine. A large, dark bed, and he hung crystals in the air to provide just a touch of faerie light. It was a lot of kissing. Sarah was still getting used to that, and the Goblin King of her dreams was an excuse to practice. And _oh_ , they practiced….His arms around her, their mouths collided over and over and over again. Sometimes the tongue was timid, sometimes delving. Sometimes he kissed just the corners of her mouth, gently, feather-light, until her eyes closed and her lips parted for him. She seemed to have no objection to having him down to his loose poet shirt, cut so deeply that most of his torso was on display – but for her own shirt she was much more timid. That tended to stay on, though his gloved hands were able to roam beneath on a few occasions, sample the skin below…The whiteness of her. How he longed to taste.

      And because it was a dream, she neither noticed nor objected to how his arousal burned against his trousers. He could set her on his leg and she bucked against him as furiously as any teenage girl free in sleep might do. She straddled his lap once and he nearly took her, nearly bit into her shoulder hard enough to pierce the skin, leave his mark and claim her as forever his, his Goblin Queen…

      _No power over me_. It was not how he was used to having his sexual encounters.

It was very different than the wild affairs of his youth – the orgies, the quick, meaningless fun. Jareth tried to imagine if that meant something of some significance (he could hear his father’s voice inside his mind saying he had finally grown up and was ready to settle down, bear responsibility, produce an heir…He refused to acknowledge whether any of that might be true, to deny the bastard the satisfaction). He tried to imagine the same routine now, and it….wasn’t the same, somehow. He had taken a few lovers to bed before Sarah had begun tentatively calling to him again – men, women, every variation in between; and yes, the spike of pleasure was wonderful, but then it was just….over. He left these paramours in the morning glow feeling not quite empty, but that he had somehow missed something very important.

      It just…wasn’t the same with Sarah, it was the only conclusion he could come to. When she was less shy, when she didn’t imagine all encounters of a sexual nature need be taken with deadly seriousness, he intended to have a great deal of fun with this little mortal girl – but even then, it could never be the same. Strange, he didn’t want it to be. These things were….better with her, better because she was there. There was a meaning imparted whose nature he could not translate, but he knew it was because of her.

      Love, his mother might have called it. He wanted to scoff to protect his reputation, even to himself, and could not.

      She lied in his arms this night nearly falling asleep, back to dreamlessness, but the smile on her kiss-reddened mouth was undeniable. Her head pillowed under his arm, her long hair fanned the pillowcase, and Jareth must grudgingly admit to himself he was utterly transfixed beside her.

      Humming with pleasure, warm and heavy with sleep, Sarah’s fingers idly ran up and down his arm. “Is any of this real? It always feels real when I wake up in the morning…”

      Why was he staring at her like this? “In a sense.”

      She laughed, mimicking his low tone. “‘In a sense.’ In _what_ sense, either something’s real or it isn’t.”

      “You’re still thinking like a Runner. Not everything is what it seems, remember? You’re thinking like a girl who will never get out of the Labyrinth.”

      Sarah’s green eyes opened and the Goblin King was _mesmerized_. “Only I did.”

      _Dear gods_ , he thought, a cold sweat beginning to drip down his neck. _I have become my father_. Smitten by a dark-haired mortal girl, what was he to do? But Sarah…Sarah was no Aemlith. She would not go gently to the Eternal Isle, not ever. For she had the power of the Labyrinth’s magic at her command, this Champion – as soon as she might know how to call upon it.

As soon as she might also call upon him, willingly and by the light of day.

      As soon as she was a woman grown, ripe to be a Goblin Queen.

      Jareth buried his face in her neck helplessly, and almost hated himself. Sarah made a noise somewhere between a laugh and a purr, for the tickle of his breath along her collar, for the feeling of him close and warm and in the circle of her arms…How tightly she held him there, before the dream might melt around them.

      And what _would_ Severin have done? His son didn’t have to guess, he knew the story: he took the woman he wanted, but so, too, did Aemlith choose to give herself; he ruled with ruthlessness and independence and stability; he held himself to the highest of standards, this fae king, always in his black, high-collared tunic, the black boots up to the thigh; held his son to a standard he could never match.

      ….But he ruled as a king who loved his wife, who would have made a kingdom for her if he had not had one to give. At times, illogically, it felt like that had been the most important of his father’s lessons and lectures, though it was not a discussion they had never had in words – so few of those existed, so few personal or warm. Or maybe that’s only what Aemlith might have said, were she not with her lord husband in the Eternal Isle. Their voices in his blood could be so hard to distinguish, sometimes.

      Jareth actually whined. “Why won’t you come with me…” His voice was muffled by her throat.

      Sarah’s fingers spasmed along his shoulders. “I can’t.”

      Petulant, he wanted to again demand “Why!” but he did not. He knew the answer – she wasn’t ready, not yet. He pulled his face away and stared at her, at the fear that colored her green eyes. Just a girl, still. Almost growling, he replied, “ _I want you_.”

      It made Sarah’s breath catch. A promise, a threat, the most truly erotic thing she could ever want to hear… “I-”

      He caught the girl’s mouth in another devouring kiss, determined to claim whatever he could before his welcome was worn. Sarah melted into him even despite her misgivings, the stiffness of her shoulders. He drank of her and felt the dream melting around them, their lips closing, the last whisper of her breath against his lips-

      “ _I want you, too_.”

      ….over. He was out of her little dream-bed now, found himself standing in the dark and empty throne room. Jareth touched his gloved fingers to his lips after a moment, as if to satisfy himself that some part of it had been real. He thought there might be blood at the corner of his mouth where their teeth had caught clumsily. “….hm.” He looked at his dais, dusty from the goblins’ cavorting, a stray chicken feather on one arm…

      And he considered the gleaming second seat stored in reserve for the Goblin Queen, exactly as he remembered it when his mother sat the throne.

      Jareth straightened his shoulders and squared his jaw. “The line _won’t_ end with me.” Why bother this speech of his, as if they could hear him across the immortal veil? “I will not allow it.” Perhaps it was pathetic to still require the approval of parents at so many thousands of years of age, parents so long since gone. He chose not to dwell on that one way or the other. Instead, he proclaimed with even greater grit, “I will _not_.”

      -and turned to go to the king’s solar, the bedroom that was his now, had been since he took the crown; to go to the big, empty bed that he owned, and to imagine a lithe little Goblin Queen in the sheets beside him.


End file.
